How the Pest Was Won: On Posner’s The Taming of the Shrew

In Deadwood’s poetically vulgar patois, Aaron Posner’sDeadwood-inspired new The Taming of the Shrew at the Folger Theatre is “beholden to no human cocksucker.” I review it in today’s Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away gratis.

For what it’s worth, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company‘s 2006 Shrew, like this new Folger one, made the character of Tranio a woman who in the tradition of other Shakespearean comedies like Twelfth Night and As You Like It disguises herself as man. So what’s usually a man’s role is played by the great Holly Twyford in this production. It was my then-girlfriend who played the part in that ’06 Shrew.